Tweening Motion or Maintaining Constant Values Between Keyframes


The Toon Boom Studio can automatically generate inbetween drawings when you move, scale, rotate or skew elements with pegs. This process of generating inbetween transition drawings is known as interpolation or motion tweening.

By default, when you add keyframes to pegs, Toon Boom Studio tweens the drawings animated by the peg.

If you are animating a cut-out character, you may want to use keyframes to control the animation rather than allow Toon Boom Studio to automate inbetween drawings. To do this, you must change a segment between two keyframes from a tweened segment to a constant segment. When you create constant segments, images switch from one to the other, without any interpolation.

To tween the images animated by the peg you must change each segment from a constant segment to a non-constant (tweened) segment. When you tween images on a motion path, tick marks appear on the motion path to indicate each position of the image as it is interpolated.

You can switch segments between constant and non-constant using menu commands or the Function Editor.

You can use a preference to change the default keyframe/tweening behavior of pegs.

To change a tweened segment to a constant segment:

1. Position the playback slider in the Timeline so that it is at the first keyframe in the segment you want to change. You can also position it between two keyframes.

2. Select Element > Peg > Set Constant Segment. The default keyboard shortcut is [Command]+[L].

To change a segment from a constant segment to a tweened segment:

1. Select the peg in the Timeline.

2. Position the playback slider in the Timeline so that it is at the first keyframe in the segment you want to change. You can also position it between two keyframes.

3. Select Element > Peg > Set Non Constant Segment. The default keyboard shortcut is [Command]+[Shift]+[L].

To change the default from a constant segment to tweened:

1. Open the Preferences dialog box. Select Toon Boom Studio > Preferences.

The Preferences dialog box opens.

2. Click the Sceneplanning tab.

3. De-select the Create Constant Keyframes option.

4. Click OK. All keyframes that you create after you disable this option will create tweened animated effects.

See Also
Editing Functions in the Function Editor
Positioning Pivot Points on Cut-Out Characters
Timing Pegs and Child Elements